


Vid and Fic Categories

by yourlibrarian



Series: Fanfic Genres [14]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Fandom - Fandom
Genre: Fan Videos, Fanwork of Fanwork, Gen, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29850417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: It’s probably a professional tendency but I like to categorize, contextualize and devise labels for things. And lately as I’ve been working on video recs I find that I’m curious about how evaluating vids and fic overlap, and what it is that makes something stand out for me.
Series: Fanfic Genres [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/465745
Kudos: 3
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Vid and Fic Categories

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted May 2, 2005

It’s probably a professional tendency, but I like to categorize, contextualize and devise labels for things. And lately as I’ve been working on video recs I find that I’m curious about how evaluating vids and fic overlap, and what it is that makes something stand out for me.

In some cases there seems to be no parallel. For example, with vids there are various elements that come into it –- music, lyrics, clip choice, clip manipulation, storyline, and genre. In some ways that could be compared to fic –- dialogue, action, writing style, storyline and genre. But what about music? Would character interpretation be a parallel? The way in which characters interact could be considered a rhythm, which is different from dialogue. I’m not sure. There are definitely things you can do visually or you can do in text that cannot be done in the other medium. 

For example, some books lend themselves poorly to a visual version. I still remember when I heard “Bonfire of the Vanities” was being made into a movie (yes, I’m that old). I couldn’t imagine how they’d do it because so much of the book was internal observation and monologue. The movie didn’t do well, though I don’t know how the filmmakers handled it because I never saw it. And vid makers are particularly hamstrung because, unlike fic writers, they can’t make things up out of whole cloth. Fic writers, especially those doing gen, do have certain restrictions in canon but it’s not the same. In the end a vidder has to work with the images filmed.

That said, I just saw a vid today which, after I got over the wow factor (and it definitely deserves wows), made me realize she’d used writing conventions for a visual story. In case you haven’t seen it I don’t want to spoil it for you, but Sadique’s “Memories” uses something I’ve occasionally seen before but to a much greater extent. In her video it seems to me that the visuals mimic text techniques of internal monologues and asides, though in this case it is all foreshadowing, even the music.

Sadique's own take was that music is the same equivalent as word-choice. "You use words to paint a picture, describe a mood, understand a relationship. You choose those words with great thought, and absolute purpose. For me, music serves the same purpose in vidding. It's like, when writing, say, an epic like LotR, when describing the sweeping vistas and bloody battles, you use words that make something in the reader's heart stir; when filming the same scene, you use grand music swelling in the background. You choose the words to set the mood and the tone of your story; in the same way, you choose the music to set the mood and the tone of your vid."

So are there similarities between the use of lyrics and dialogue? Both move the story along, serving as commentary and sometimes just filler. In fact lyrics seem more often to be narration and internal monologue than actual dialogue. In some cases we hear the character’s voices more clearly when they’re talking to themselves, especially if they’re quiet people. Could a vid ever be done in silence? Music gives a vid its pace and its rhythm and sets a mood. These qualities are also noticeable in text stories with the use of words but also a stylistic approach. Someone suggested that vids were more like short poems. But could one be done with dialogue cards like silent films?

Clip choice and action? These two things could be paralleled. Though some fic is fairly light on action they all have some of it, and as the saying goes, the best shows it doesn’t just tell.

Clip manipulation and writing style seem to be a justified comparison too. As I mentioned earlier all vidders are limited by the clips they can use, but not how they put them to use. Juxtaposition, editing, effects, all of it is what makes one vid different from another. They can use identical clips and still tell different stories, just like some pairings have their own set of story genres (i.e., S6 Spuffy missing scenes, Spander basement stories, Spangel taming stories) and yet many different variations can be produced.

Speaking of storyline and genre, it seems both have these. For example, at the the Buffyverse Music Video Database, there are 10 categories of videos listed. I’m not suggesting these are the only ones, only that they are apparently broad and common enough that they can be considered descriptive of a lot of vids. They include Action, Character Study, Comedy, Constructed Reality, Episodic, Experimental, Narrative, Recruiter, Romance and Slash. I find it an interesting mix of visual and textual genres.

For example, I suppose one could categorize some fic as Action or Narrative, but this seems more visually oriented to me. Comedy and Romance would be fair categories for both. Constructed Reality could be AU, especially things like human AU, and Episodic could be episodic based fic where the events are rewritten from the point of view of a particular character (usually not the central one in the original version). There’s certainly Experimental type fic, and a lot of Character Study fic. But what would qualify as Recruiter fic? Perhaps virtual season projects? And why is Slash a separate category from Romance? Het is still a default in most romantic fic, sure, but it seems odd to categorize slash as something separate since most of it is as romantic as its het counterparts. Really, it should just be a subgenre of the other categories. But arguments about slash could go on for days and I don’t want to get sidetracked.

I could see Character Study, Comedy, AU, Episodic, Experimental, Shipfic being broad categories for fic, adding in Future fic, Darkfic, PWP and Crossovers. Crossovers and Darkfic are more work in vids but can be done. And PWP would be limited to what was broadcast, but if we expanded the category to just being plotless, there’s certainly plenty of vids that are just collections of things. Future fic? I don’t see how that could work. Maybe I’m not being imaginative enough.

But I’m still pondering the role of music. What equivalent does it have in text? And as someone asked, would you have to stay in character? A "Dawn vid with NSYNC, a Spike one with punk, an Angel one with Manilow. Or could it be more interesting to pair something just for the irony -- Gunn with Britney Spears, Angel with the Ramones etc. Having seen a Spuffy video done to Abba I think musical choice has a lot to say about character interpretation even if by ironic juxtaposition.


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